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Augmented reality meets Amazon's scale.
Welcome to Near Future. In this weekly feature, The Current spotlights innovations powering the next wave of commerce.
Shopping for shoes on Amazon allows users to scroll through a host of brands, colors and styles. A new tool is adding the capability to use a phone to check out how the shoes look on their feet.
The ecommerce company’s fashion division on Thursday launched Virtual Try-On for Shoes, a new tool that can be accessed in the US and Canada using the Amazon shopping app in iOS (The company said Android will follow soon). After a period in limited release, Amazon is rolling out the feature with thousands of sneaker styles from brands including New Balance, adidas, Reebok, Puma, Superga, Lacoste, Asics and Saucony.
With the introduction of the feature, Amazon is tapping into augmented reality (AR) to mimic an in-store try-on experience. Augmented reality allows users look at a real-world image through a mobile camera, and view an overlay of a digital image within the phone display.
Here’s how Amazon’s Virtual Try-On for Shoes works:
After being popularized by Pokemon Go, brands and retailers have been experimenting with AR in recent years. As we wrote in Augmented reality is transforming the try-on:
It could usher in a new phase of try-before-you-buy. Makeup counters, dressing rooms, shoe try-ons and even mirrors are all key tools used by physical stores that allow shoppers to get a sense of a product before purchase. Augmented reality can help to bring a key part of the in-person shopping experience to the digital realm: "How can I touch it, feel it and get a better sense of this product?" said Will Gee, CEO of Baltimore-based XR development studio Balti Virtual.
Tech enhancements have helped this area to evolve. In 2017, upgrades that came with the iPhone X and Apple’s release of the ARKit marked a major step forward. This opened the way for pioneering apps from Ikea, Wayfair, Warby Parker and Home Depot.
Amazon, too, has introduced AR shopping in the past. It previously rolled out a tool that allowed shoppers to visualize home decor in a room. With L'Oreal, it introduced cosmetics try-on in 2019. In April, Amazon incorporated virtual try-on into a custom clothing service called Made for You that launched in experimental mode.
The new fashion-focused feature comes at a time when AR is increasingly being applied to apparel and beauty, showing how a product will look on a person rather than in a space. Walmart rolled out its own virtual try-on tool for women's fashion after last year's acquisition of Zeekit, though this allows users to choose a model that best represents them rather than see a product on themselves.
Social media platforms are also integrating augmented reality as they look to bring ecommerce capabilities into their apps. After proving out the technology and conversion potential of its AR tools through brand partnerships that included shoe try-on and cosmetics, Snap is in the midst of introducing upgrades that include a central "dressing room" hub within Snapchat for users to view themselves wearing products, and various tools that allow brands and retailers to easily add items and create AR experiences within the app.
AR tools hold promise in helping to drive purchase decisions. According to a study by AR no-code design platform Camera IQ, 59% of consumers said they would be more likely to purchase a product they’ve seen visualized through AR.
Amazon's Virtual Try-on for Shoes. (Gif via Amazon)
Like others before it, Amazon is initially releasing the technology in a targeted way. It is focusing in the single product area of shoes. It's also focused on look, as opposed to combining style and fit like Warby Parker's AR try-on tool for glasses. However, within the experience, the likeness of the shoes appears to fit to a user's feet when rendered within the app.
That said, the ability to view the shoes from multiple angles goes a long way toward providing a more true-to-life experience, and the integration within Amazon's existing in-app shopping experience makes it accessible as part of general browsing.
Plus, the scale of Amazon can still be felt even in what feels like a test. Even as it provides a tool only for sneakers, the platform is providing access to a host of brands, and a wide range of styles and colors.
Try-on is familiar from the in-store experience, but AR combined with Amazon’s product catalog brings the potential for shoppers to try out a wide variety of options, and do so without having to go to a store and pull boxes off the shelves. It’s a representation of how ecommerce can extend the choice available.
“Amazon Fashion’s goal is to create innovative experiences that make shopping for fashion online easier and more delightful for customers,” said Muge Erdirik Dogan, president of Amazon Fashion, in a statement. “We’re excited to introduce Virtual Try-On for Shoes, so customers can try on thousands of styles from brands they know and love at their convenience, wherever they are. We look forward to listening and learning from customer feedback as we continue to enhance the experience and expand to more brands and styles.”
Even as it remains in learning mode, Amazon’s increasing adoption of the technology will likely be felt across ecommerce. An eyewear executive recently told us that AR is becoming "table stakes" for ecommerce shopping experiences, and Amazon including the capability as part of the largest and most widely-used online shopping platform could go a long way toward making that so.
Microservices architecture allows the company to give retailers ownership over omnichannel software.
With the growth of digital commerce, providing consumer choice is at the center of all of a retailer’s operations.
In recent years, that became especially evident in the area of fulfillment.
Ecommerce made the process of moving an order into place for delivery a crucial function, as the ability to source products close to demand quickly was an imperative.
“Retailers are looking to own more of their fulfillment destiny because consumer expectations have increased,” Chap Achen, VP of product strategy and operations at Nextuple, told The Current on the floor of the NRF Big Show 2023. “Fulfillment is now a competitive weapon.”
As digital operations increasingly blend with the physical store, a host of new fulfillment options are coming online. They can have an item delivered from the store on the same day, or they pick it up. Even a wider offering such as in-store pickup has a host of different choices inside of it. Consumers can pick up an item at a counter, or a locker. They can stop by anytime, or schedule a pickup on Saturday.
While this optionality helps retailers meet customers where they are, it also adds complexity to the systems that run them, and requires operational adjustments to put them in place.
It means the software that powers fulfillment operations must also meet retailers where they are, Achen said. Many retailers have specific setups and processes. They may have a store located in a mall with a nearby distribution center, or a series of small storefronts. At the same time, retailers need to have flexibility with the software that they use so they can provide options to consumers.
For Nextuple, the vehicle to provide this is microservices, which describes a software architecture in which the parts of an application work independently, but are also built to work together. The company harnesses microservices to offer an ownership-centered approach to deploying its software through a product called Nextuple Fulfillment Studio.
“Today, there are only two ways to buy software: [software as a service] or custom building,” Achen said. “You can do it yourself or with a partner. We are a third option. We will help you accelerate your time to market because we've already developed 80% of your requirements, and then we'll give you that as source code.”
The software is composable. Retailers own the source code, and they can iterate. Along the way, they have the ability to swap out components of the software for pieces that enable them to better respond to the needs of customers, if they choose.
It shows how composable commerce is spreading throughout retail operations. A first wave of development applied the approach to the “front-end” of commerce, such as operating an ecommerce store and marketing. With fulfillment software such as Nextuple coming online, there are signs it is being applied to backend operations, as well.
In all, Nextuple offers 14 microservices as part of the Studio, including engines for same-day delivery, storage, inventory management and sourcing.
At the NRF Big Show, Nextuple announced that it is live with five national omnichannel retailers. Together, they have $50 billion in annual revenue and 7000 store locations.
The company is aiming to serve a group of retailers that are widely known, but still looking to hone operations for omnichannel retail. When it comes to fulfillment technology, the retail landscape has distinct tiers.
The largest players have built their own fulfillment tech to power logistics networks that reach across the country.
Name brand retailers with a national presence also want to offer competitive fulfillment, but haven’t made the move to acquire platforms or developed their own software in-house. Typically, they would seek out a software provider that offers a set platform on a subscription model. But the particular needs of commerce require software that powers physical operations with digital tools. That requires a different type of solution, Nextuple believes.
“We want to level the playing field,” Achen said. “We're helping the mid-tier [retailer] compete with Target, Amazon and Walmart.”